Ahh commercials

The early days involved networks solely for kids (noggin, playhousedisney, PBSKids Sprout, etc.). The ads included plugs for the channels other shows. Cartoon Network, however, has the standard range of commercials. So now apart from quoting Pokemon (which airs on the channel) the kiddos have *groan* started quoting ads.

I've been informed that if I have a "itchy nose or watery eyes" I should use some Benadryl. That KaBoom will get stains out. And "Danimals Extreme... it'll get ya".

Cian has been recently obsessed with Danimals extreme (yogurt smoothie drink), and when at the supermarket I finally bought some for him. I expected the usual : "blech... you can have it" ,but NO! :D

Before he started drinking he braced himself for his head to start convulsing (as seen on TV). Took a swig and sat there all thoughtful like and said, " Hey ... it didn't get me".

I couldn't keep a straight face. He still quotes the ad, but now he changes it (sometimes) to "it's not gonna get ya".

Wichitas

Yesterday we took a trip to the Wichita Mountains. Woohoo! Good day for it... overcast, but not raining (few sprinkles on the drive down).
Luna tried to make me change my mind, but despite her kitten cuteness my mind was made up...I was going to get off my lazy duff and drive to the Wichitas.

For some reason I had conveniently forgotten how long the drive is (when you don't take the toll road). They have added/improved the roads along the scenic route! Much straighter, my map/GPS program was constantly going off road... didn't have these roads included.

We made it into the park and went straight to Mt Scott. The kids had requested "a picnic on the mountain", but of course when we got there they didn't want to eat.


We managed to find those "tunnels" Jamie swore were on the mountain.

Here is another pic of Jamie having found another hidey hole.


The kids were fearless. Jumping from rock to rock, climbing, crawling, etc. don't have any pictures of their death defying feats (as I was holding hands and giving them climbing suggestions). Of course having different speed climbers was difficult at times. Cian sure surprised me of the routes he would come up with while I was helping Jamie out.

Another pic of kids in front of rocks they conquered


Among the rocks Jamie said she found a baby golem. Although I couldn't see it we brought it along with us in the car. Jamie promised to take care of it.

Ate some lunch and then went out and explored some more. Cian found a rock he said "looks like a hand". Here's his high-five.


Managed to see plenty of turkey vultures (one even landed! Had enough gliding for one day I suppose). On our way out we ventured deeper into the park before leaving. Found the buffalo herd walking across the road on our way out (and the folks out of their cars trying to get close for a picture *groan*).

On the ride home we found a cool park along the road near Cyril. Pretty new park... even has a climbing wall thing. Jamie was exicited about the "slide you can climb up". This was part of a kiddy playset that looked like a slide chute, but had nubs to grab onto. Cian favorite was the huge spiral slide.

All in all a great day... lots of driving, but lots of fun too. The kids have already asked me to go back to the mountains LOL I guess we don't have boulders in our backyard to crawl around on. Another time.

Experiment 2: Pizza Time

Finally made our own crust. We have been just buying from the store, but this time we made our own. Cian did most of the helping.
Here he is kneading the dough:


Then came the scene like that commercial: "We're doing experiments to find out how kids make messes. *open sliding van door*....We still have no idea"


And finally we had the finished product.


I have some more work to do perfecting my pizza tossing/stretching skills, but it still tastes good!

Gonna start packing up for a Wichita Mts trip. more on that later

Yum

As we miss our in-house Harry Potter fan we are experimenting with some new foods. This post is after the first experiment.

Food Experiment #1 Homemade Kettle Corn

Searching around on the net I found several recipes. The gist seemed to be:

Ingredients = popcorn kernels, veggie oil (had safflower oil on hand), sugar

Used my double boiler for something other than melting chocolate! The lower pan has an uber-thick base which did an excellent job of retaining heat so I didn't have to leave the pan sit on the stove.

Directions = Pour enough oil to cover bottom of pan. Heat. Pour enough popcorn to make single layer of kernels. Sprinkle sugar over top (try to cover all lightly and evenly). Cover + Heat. Shake a bit to keep from burning once things are popping.


Results = Yumm. Good stuff. Glad I didn't have a wider pan! I had to empty out some popcorn out for more to pop... Orville knew his stuff!!



More later

Chocolate to the rescue!

SO... I bought some tamales from a lady at work. They are good, but extremely hot. Someone she took the orders from decided they wanted HOT and the whole batch became HOT. Even though the peppers can easily be scraped out the hotness remains. When Rose first had them she drank more milk in 5 minutes than she does in a month!

So the idea came to me... Nutella! Nutella is for putting on everything right? I reasoned that chocolate came from Central America. I remember having Mayan chocolate ice cream that had cinnamon in it. Hot spice is kinda like that....kinda... redhots..cinnamon, right?

Eureka! It was great. Now I could eat the tamales without running out of drink!




Another choclate episode: Watching cartoons with the kids today. Noggin has a segment called "Cooking for Kids with Luis". Today he was sharing another recipe he came up with. He mixed granola cereal (any cereal), crushed graham crackers, and a spoon of cocoa powder (maybe it was chocolate drink powder), and add milk. "HMM," I said.

So I did my standard mixing of cereals and added a spoon of cocoa powder (sugar already in Life cereal). Pretty good. Had that "Cocoa Krispies" in milk sort of flavor. How come I never thought of this simple addition to cereal?!

Wet times and Kitten stuff

Thought I'd share some phone photos... now that I've figured out how to enter my email address as a contact!

Today was exceptionally wet. Ever since construction south of us has been going on the runoff water is especially muddy. Here is a shot of what the parking lot looked like this morning.


Here is why I had to go all hobbit this morning in my cube at work:

I don't normally leave dry socks and shoes in my cube, so I employed my keyboard cables under my desk as a mini sock line.



And the kitten side of the post. My berserker kitty. She has always climbed my leg. Usually she climbs up to my shoulders, but now she has been stopping on my upper leg. Holding on and meowing at me. Here it is from my POV:



AND Rose put a cute (and recent) pic of the kids HERE